Shadow

By Jessika T., Townsend, MA

I remember you running on a flight of laughter wind in your uncut hair eyes crisp with wit. I ran, gasping, after you branches snapping back at me biting at my sun-burnt skin bare feet sparking the grass. You were the first to kiss me the first to make me giddy with insincere love, undeveloped. I remember it all – your craziness, how you made me laugh. At night I would dream as I lay awake about you, a tiny boy with a world of imagination. Together we sat by the water staring at the ripples we made with our toes. But I would not jump from that old brick bridge though you pleaded with me so. I would not sneak out at night to whisper with you into the darkness. You begged me to run far away to risk, to experiment, to live … If, now, I could do it all again, I would give in to your pleas. You would find me beside you running with you instead of behind you. I would do anything now if I could look into your eyes once alive with spirit, with light. I would do anything now to hear your voice, your breath to jump from the bridge with you into the shock of cold water. There, you are still alive. There, in that place where we played together, You were so real, so vivid and I was the shadow without life. Now it is so hard to realize that you are the one without life, buried in a shadow of memories.